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This month’s color inspiration comes from BreeAnn from Bristol, RI. On a recent trip to New York City, BreeAnn ran into this amazing street artist in Washington Square. I did a little investigating and found out that the name of this artist is Joe Mangrum. The medium for Joe’s art is colored sand! His detailed, one-of-kind pieces can take 7 to 9 hours to complete. When it is done and time to go home, he sweeps up this beautiful swirl of colors into a dustpan. I love this type of art! It is in the moment. I guess that is why I have loved my work in live theatre. It is a shared experience that happens in that moment and then is never recreated in the exact same way ever again.

This artist’s vibrant and playful colors were a perfect inspiration for this month’s new yarn. As I have been working towards becoming an accomplished knitter of socks, I decided that I wanted to try my hand at dyeing self-striping yarn. The colors that Mr. Mangrum uses in his sand art inspired me in our first offering of self-striping yarn. After much reading on the topic, the building of a warping board, and enough math to make my head explode, I present to youSidewalk Sand. Thank you BreeAnn for the photo and the inspiration. If you want to know more about the artist Joe Mangrum there are several YouTube videos that you can check out to see this amazing artist at work.

Tumbleweed Yarn will be offering this self-striping yarn as a kit, which will include the 400 yards/100gms of Sidewalk Sand self-striping yarn and 30 yards of a matching pink yarn. The pink yarn can be used for a contrasting heel and toe if you choose to knit socks–or the pink can become fringe on a very festive striped scarf.

Kitman has also designed a beautiful lace collar that we will offer as a free pattern when you purchase our Rust yarn.

This is a simple, fast pattern for those of us who need immediate gratification. The open lace pattern makes the collar light and it can dress up a simple T for the spring weather or would be a nice addition to a sweater come fall and winter. Kitman knitted this collar using our Aubrey Fingering weight yarn in the colorway Rust. Aubrey is 100% Superwash merino wool. This collar scarf only uses 55gms of yarn so this would be a nice project to knit in order to use up some of that extra yarn you have left over from other projects. Read a more detailed description of this collar scarf and the kits we are offering on our Etsy website www.tumbleweedyarn.etsy.com.

Well, Kitman is off celebrating Chinese New Year with her family and friends in Malaysia. She promises to come home with wonderful stories and pictures with which to entertain me. Our first month of business has been fun and exciting. We feel so proud as we send out each of our little packages to customers from around the world. In fact, that is one of the most exciting parts–seeing what wonderful places where our yarn is sent and imagining the beautiful final products that will come from them.

We continue to build our stock with new colors. And as we build, we look to you for inspiration. A photograph sent to us by Brian from Midland, Texas inspired our 3 newest colors.

In our first blog we encouraged anyone to send us a photo that reflects a sense of home. In reply, Brian sent us this photograph of an orchid. Nature really does supply us with the most magnificent color schemes. Brian wrote to us that his mother was blessed with a green thumb and that his childhood home was filled with potted plants and fresh flowers. Although he claims that his thumb is not quite as green as mom’s, he still loves to have the beauty of flowers and plants decorating his home.

Brian is a beginning knitter and hopes to be knitting sweaters for his beloved pal Max before to long.

Being a beginning knitter myself, may I suggest that you start with a simple dog collar or small throw for Max’s dog bed? I made the mistake of choosing to knit a pair of socks as one of my first knitting projects. This was a mistake. My brain and hands could not handle a simple pair of socks, so I have decided to focus on flat objects for a while, to build my confidence before I try shaping again. But one day I will be a sock genius. As the expert knitter on our team, Kitman will help me to achieve this goal.

Because Brian’s photo was selected for our inspiration, Tumbleweed Yarn will be sending Brian a skein of yarn so he can get started on that sweater for Max. We would love to see Max in his finery, so perhaps Brian will be kind enough to send a photo when he is done. Living in Texas, I know there is a very small window of time in which Max will be comfortable in knitwear; but for our sake I’m sure he would be willing to model for us anytime.

Anyone who has a photograph that would be a good color inspiration, please send us a copy (mailto:tumbleweedyarn@hotmail.com). If it is selected, you will be helping us with our next colorway and receive a skein of our yarn in appreciation.

Check out our new colors! Kitman and I have been working on a variety of colors to put in our store. It is so fun to consider colors we want to produce and imagine how to mix the dyes to achieve those colors. Most of the time we are pleasantly surprised by our results being close to what we intended. But sometimes it doesn’t exactly work out the way we envisioned. Surprise, it is actually better! I LOVE those happy accidents. As Bob Ross, (painter, TV art instructor) says, “We don’t have mistakes here, we just have happy accidents.” As we build our inventory I am sure Kitman and I will have many more happy accidents.

The Wimberley Shawl Kitis still available in our ETSY store. If you are interested, it is still not too late to grab one for yourself. Also, We have aFacebook Page now, please hop in and click like for our page!
Thanks!